Politicians Rejoice as Bill Turque Leaves

The most feared person in MoCo politics is not an elected official. He’s not a union leader, a developer, a big contributor or even a blogger. He’s Washington Post reporter Bill Turque, who has covered the MoCo beat for over four years. Happily for politicians and unhappily for the rest of us, Turque has stepped down and it’s unclear what the Post will do next.

MoCo officials did not fully understand what they were getting when Turque began writing about the county. Among his many previous assignments, Turque covered former D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, a FAR tougher figure than any MoCo politician. Turque’s battle for information from the school system escalated to the point when his own bosses tried to censor him. Then there’s the story of when the Post allowed Rhee to use one of their conference rooms to hold a meeting. Rumor has it that Turque quietly walked in with a notepad. Rhee was about as pleased as a bride who sees a cockroach in her wedding cake!

Politicians in MoCo had it easy from the Post until Turque showed up. His two predecessors on the MoCo beat were Mike Laris, who wrote one or two articles a month, and Victor Zapana, who was fresh out of college. Neither knew a lot about the county. Turque, in contrast, was a long-time resident who quickly learned the history and the players. Before long, inconvenient stories began appearing in the paper. Politicians began longing for the days of scanty coverage!

Perhaps no politician in the county will be happier to see Turque leave than David Trone. Turque wrote a story on Trone’s political contributions early in his candidacy for Congress including the now-infamous Trone quote “I sign my checks to buy access.” Trone’s campaign never got past that statement. But there was more, including coverage of the Trone Spy and a Trone company’s payment of a fine for making illegal campaign contributions. We think Trone should celebrate Turque’s retirement by instituting a blow-out sale at Total Wine. Spread the joy, Mr. Trone!

The key to understanding Turque is that he’s an old-school, all-business reporter. If you have real information, he’ll look at it. If you have BS, spin or rumor that repeatedly doesn’t pan out, he sniffs it out lickety-split. The worst thing one could ever do with Turque is tell him “there’s no story there.” To Turque, that is proof that there actually IS a story and it will make him dig harder. One more thing. Your author has spent countless hours eating sushi with Turque and to this day I have no idea who he voted for.

The future after Turque is hazy at best. The Post is searching for a successor. It’s possible that the Post will bring on another newbie like Zapana or perhaps have its MoCo beat reporter take on work outside the county as its solicitation suggests. Either of those possibilities would likely result in declines of coverage here. Add that to the demise of the Gazette and the Examiner and, other than Bethesda Magazine and a couple online outlets, we could have a news desert at a time of historic change in county politics.